Washington Grove seeks to make threatened’ status official

Town commission details encroachment on borders

Kathleen J. Bryan/The Gazette
Washington Grove resident Bruce Rothrock prepares to transplant knockout roses on his Acorn Lane property. The German Gothic house, dating to the late 1800s, has had various additions and changes during the years. The home’s original entrance is on Grove Avenue.

Town of Washington Grove Archives
The German Gothic house, pictured in 1921, on Acorn Lane in Washington Grove now is owned by Bruce Rothrock and partner Judy Banachowski, who purchased it in 1992.

Kathleen J. Bryan/The Gazette
The Washington Grove Historic District, home to about 500 residents as of the 2010 Census, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Kathleen J. Bryan/The Gazette
Washington Grove Mayor Georgette Cole said the town was established as a Methodist revival camp and still retains much of the Gothic Revival architecture.

Town of Washington Grove Archives
Homes originally built on The Circle in Washington Grove faced the circular green space. This photo was taken in 1898.

Kathleen J. Bryan/The Gazette
In Washington Grove, a “town within a forest,” an oak tree lives in harmony with a Carpenter Gothic-style home on First Avenue, circa 1875.

Kathleen J. Bryan/The Gazette
Washington Grove resident Bruce Rothrock prepares to transplant knockout roses on his Acorn Lane property. The German Gothic house, dating to the late 1800s, has had various additions and changes during the years. The home’s original entrance is on Grove Avenue.

As new developments close in on Washington Grove, residents of the forest-embedded town are worried about the future of their historic neighborhood.

Washington Grove, home to about 500 residents according to the 2010 Census, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The town’s Historic Preservation Commission has asked a state organization to designate it a “threatened” landmark.

“We are seeking support to preserve a town that hasn’t changed much,” said Joli McCathran, a member of the commission.

She said the town’s borders are threatened by road and development construction, especially the construction of a set of apartments on its northwest border. The developer of the apartments, to be called Towne Crest, had to lower the development’s planned density in October as Washington Grove residents fought to preserve the quiet environment near their borders. The developers originally had planned to build 356 apartments on its 8-acre space, more than three times the current number of units on the site.

McCathran said the Towne Crest developer’s application to build a high-density residential area “was the trigger” for the 200-acre town to seek public support.

Washington Grove sent an application to Preservation Maryland, a Baltimore-based nonprofit focused on saving historic landmarks. The nonprofit chooses about a dozen landmarks for its “Endangered Maryland” list every year.

In 2012, the list included the Cider Barrel in Germantown and Silver Spring Baptist Church. According to a press release from Preservation Maryland, it designated the Cider Barrel a threatened landmark because of encroaching development and plans to move the structure from the edge of the roadway.

Preservation Maryland occasionally is able to provide help for the “threatened” sites it selects, said Louise Hayman, a spokeswoman for the organization, though the designation does not afford any legal or regulation-related benefits.

“We will, in some cases, provide some modest funding because we think it’s an important site,” she said.

The communities around the chosen sites mainly benefit from increased attention from the public and her organization, Hayman said, though Preservation Maryland already was familiar with Washington Grove. It supported a state Open Space Legacy designation adjacent to the town in 2005, expressed concern about a CSX bridge project in 2009 and reviewed the possible impact of the Towne Crest apartments this year, she said.

“It seems to be nonstop,” McCathran said. “I’ve lived here some 30 years and we’re always under threat by development.”

Hayman said the organization’s selection committee already has chosen the sites that will be on its 2013 list, though it will not release it until late March, when the list is published in Maryland Life magazine.